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UNESP - Universidade Estadual Paulista “Júlio de Mesquita Filho” IBILCE - Instituto de Biociências, Letras e Ciências Exatas Licenciatura em Letras - Diurno Literatura Inglesa II Professor: Peter James Harry Student: Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira Brave New World (1932) Aldous Huxley São José do Rio Preto October 5th, 2018 1 - Aldous Huxley’s biography Aldous Huxley was born on July 26, 1894, in the village of Godalming, England. He grew up in a family of educators, since his father (Leonard Huxley) was a writer and his mother (Julia Arnold), a teacher. In addition, his grandfather was a biologist who helped Darwin’s theory of evolution to be introduced to a wide public. In consequence, Aldous got influenced by this debate of science and religion. Like all the sons of his family, he attended Eton as well, a prestigious preparatory school, and Balliol College, Oxford. He also attended at Lady Ottoline Morrell where he met the novelist Virginia Wolf, the economist John Maynard Kaynes and critics as Clive Bell. Thus living up in an educational informed and even dominated family life was not that easy. Academic and professional brilliance was expected from the Huxleys and from this pressure came depression, which may have contributed to the suicide of Trevenan, Aldous’ elder brother. When he was sixteen, he quit his pursuit of a medicine career because of an eye disease and dedicated himself into studying literature. Fortunately, a surgery corrected most of his vision even though he would suffer from it for the rest of his life. After taking his degree at Oxford, he returned to Eton to teach. Among his students was Eric Blair, known by his pseudonym ‘George Orwell’, who wrote the classics 1984 and Animal Farm. After publishing his best known book, Brave New World, he moved to New Mexico (which is the Savage’s city in the story) with his wife Maria. In 1915, he took a First in English Literature (highest honors). He died of cancer in California, on November 22, 1963. 1.1 - Some of Huxley’s works · The Burning Whell (1916) - collection of poetry · Crome Yellow (1921) · Antic Hay (1956) · Point Counter Point (1928) · Brave New World (1932) · Brave New World Revisited (1958) 1.2 - Historical Context The book was written after the First World War (1914-1918) and the Russian Revolution (1917). The economical and social changes at this time were worldwide. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: the early 20th century - expression of common fears surrounding the rapid advancement of technology The 1920s and 1930s became known for their fast-paced and meaningless routine. The expansion of communication, transportation and new technology enabled the mass production. He picked up on such optimism and created the dystopian of his novel so as to criticize it. Much of the anxiety that drives Brave New World can be traced to a widespread belief in technology as a futuristic remedy for problems caused by disease and war. The writers at this time, such as Huxley, wrote about changes in national feelings, and the need of equality among classes and between sexes, questioning about traditional morality, especially related to sex, showing that both men and women are free individuals to handle with their own sexual lives by themselves. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: FREE LOVE SINCE HIS FIRST WIFE AND HI HAD AN OPEN MARRIAGE AND THEY EVEN SHARED THE BED OF THE SAME FEMALE LOVER, Mary Hutchinson. Huxley used the issue as an irony to reveal that although sexual rules may change, the power of tradition and conventions still remains the same. The movement toward socialism in the 1920s appears in the book as the totalitarian World State runned with the motto “COMMUNITY. IDENTITY. STABILITY.”; inquires about religious beliefs and materialism are transformed into a religion of consumerism with Henry Ford as a God; and if the cars are made in mass and identical, so will human beings. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: the image of Lenina and her lack of promiscuity Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: even thought everything is changing very fast, the conservative thoughts dont. 2 - Utopian fiction The construction of an imaginary world is what contributes to its genre. The word “utopia” comes from Greek “no place” and “good place”, and came into English literature as a way to point out the problems of the society. In utopian fictions, the imagination becomes a way to explore social, political, and religious life. The most popular writer of this genre in Huxley’s time was Herbert George Wells; he was known by his optimistic view of the future and Aldous’ reading his Men Like Gods inspired him to make fun of this optimism through irony. What began as a parody turned out into the Brave New World. The novel itself and its world is not a “good place” and so Huxley called it a world of “negative utopia”, which could be called as “dystopia” meaning “bad place”, the opposite of the traditional utopia. This darker vision of the future inspired others like George Orwell in his Animal Farm (1946) and 1984 (1949), and also Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (1950). 2.1 - The structure of the novel The novel is divided into three main parts, which demanded a scape from conventional structures by adding a “distracting” element to the utopia, the Savage Reservation, another fictional world as a rival and contrast to his dystopia within the novel. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: in "common" utopia fictions, we would have just one utopia, one bad place, to point out he society problems The first part establishes the dystopia, the futuristic world of the London of the future, described in a lot of details. The second one takes the reader to a totally different world, the Savage Reservation, in order to shock the London characters who are travelling there as tourists. This part introduces the protagonist, John, who is struggling in the third part to deal with the dystopia. Since convention expects the main character to appear very early in narrative constructions, the author flouts it by introducing the protagonist only in the middle of the novel to produce a particular effect; readers become convinced that Bernard Marx will be the center of the plot, but when he proves himself someone different, we are introduced to John. According to conventions, the inclusion of the Savage world should blur the clarity of the London world. But he managed to emerge both worlds as believable and horrifying, each one in its own way. 2 .2 - Plot overview Brave New World opens in London, almost six hundred years in the future (“After Ford”). Human life has been almost entirely industrialized - controlled by a few people at the top of a World State. The first scene is in the Central London Hatching and Conditioning Centre, where the Director of the Hatchery (D.H.C) and one of his assistants, Henry Foster, are giving a tour to a group of boys. They learn about the Bokanovsky and Podsnap Processes that allow the Hatchery to produce thousands of nearly identical human embryos. The natural processes of birth, aging, and death represent horrors in this world. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: dehumanized life During the gestation, the embryos travel in bottles and are conditioned to belong to one of the castes: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, or Epsilon. The Alpha embryos are destined to become the leaders and thinkers of the World State.The Epsilons, stunted and stupefied by oxygen deprivation and chemical treatments, are destined to perform menial labor. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Our lives are determined in bottles and since you are born in one caste, your are supposed to do and accepts everything that is excepted from this cate - curiosity: the castes represent the first five letters of the greek alphabet The Director then leads the boys to the Nursery, where they observe a group of Delta infants being reprogrammed to dislike books and flowers. He explains that this conditioning helpsto make Deltas eager consumers. He then tells the boys about the “hypnopaedic” (sleep-teaching) methods used to teach children the morals of the World State. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: they are tortured, electrocuted, suggesting that art leads to social instability critizes capitalism Outside, the Director shows the boys some naked children engaged in sexual games. Mustapha Mond, one of the ten World Controllers, introduces himself to the boys and begins to explain the history of the World State, focusing on the State’s successful efforts to remove strong emotions, desires, and human relationships from society, since they believe that “everyone belongs to everyone else”. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: our emotions are controlled in order to keep the caste system and make the sytem runs Meanwhile, Bernard Marx, an Alpha-Plus psychologist, emerges, just like his friend, Helmholtz Watson, discontented in a world where material comfort and physical pleasure — provided by the drug soma and recreational sex — are the only concerns. Scorned by women, Bernard nevertheless manages to engage the attention of Lenina Crowne, a "pneumatic" beauty who agrees to spend a week with him at the remote Savage Reservation in New Mexico, a place far from the controlled, technological world of London. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: the only problems are related to their own pleasures, but this is a way control them into the caste system. Before Bernard leaves, he asks the D.H.C permission to visit there and he spontaneously reveals that long ago he had visited the Savage Reservation, and he confesses in sorrow that he had lost the woman who accompanied him there… Bernard goes anyway. In the Reservation, Lenina and Bernard are shocked to see its aged and ill residents; no one in the World State has visible signs of aging. There, they meet John, a fair-skinned young man who is isolated from the rest of the village. John tells Bernard about his childhood as the son of a woman named Linda who was rescued by the villagers twenty years ago. Bernard realizes that Linda is the woman mentioned by the Director and John is his son. Talking to John, he learns that Linda was disliked because of her willingness to sleep with all the men in the village, and that’s why John was raised in isolation from the rest of the village. John tells Bernard that he is eager to see the “Other Place”—the “Brave New World” that his mother has told him so much about. Bernard invites him to go to the World State and he agrees, but insists that Linda be allowed to come as well. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: in London, this was totally and actually, the right thing to do because people have no feelings and the relations were just for physical satisfaction - promiscuity was a way to control feeligs Lenina is disgusted with the Reservation and takes a lot of soma to knock her out for eighteen hours. Meanwhile, John breaks into the house where Lenina is lying intoxicated and unconscious, and barely suppresses his desire to touch her. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he does not want just lust, but something else, an expression of respect and poetic delicacy. . and she does not understand why he doesnt want to have sex with her - no feelings Bernard, Lenina, John, and Linda then fly to the World State, where the Director is waiting to exile Bernard in front of his Alpha coworkers. But Bernard turns the tables by introducing John and Linda. The shame of being a “father” causes the Director to resign, leaving Bernard free to remain in London. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: humiliation Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: being associated with natural birth — the horrifying proof of the D.H.C.'s social sins - no more moral authority to punish Bernard John becomes a success in London society because of his “strange” life in the Reservation. But he becomes very disturbed by the society he sees. Bernard also becomes popular and takes advantage of his new status, sleeping with many women and having parties with important guests, most of whom dislike Bernard but are willing to meet John. After John is introduced to Helmholtz, they quickly get along with each other. John reads Helmholtz parts of Shakespeare, but Helmholtz cannot keep himself from laughing at a serious passage about love, marriage, and parents—ideas that are ridiculous in World State culture. Lenina is now obsessed with John and decides to take soma and visit him at Bernard’s apartment, where she hopes to seduce him. But John responds to her advances with curses and lines from Shakespeare. She retreats to the bathroom while he receives a phone call in which he learns that Linda, who has been on permanent soma-holiday since her return, is about to die. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: John flies into a rage and beats her, showing the dark, dangerous side of human emotions and morality., undercovering his violence At the hospital, he watches her dying while a group of lower-caste boys are receiving their “death conditioning”, wondering why she is so unattractive. After Linda dies, John meets a group of Delta clones who are receiving their soma ration. He tries to convince them to revolt, throwing the soma out the window, but there is just chaos in which Bernard and Helmholtz are arrested with John and brought to Mustapha Mond’s office. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: In this scene, Bernard becomes entirely unsympathetic for his cowardice and lack of morality John and Mond debate the value of the World State’s policies, John arguing that they dehumanize the residents of the World State and Mond arguing that stability and happiness are more important than humanity. Mond explains that social stability has required the sacrifice of art, science, and religion. John protests that, without these things, human life is not worth living. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: they live with the motto "comunity. identity, stability" Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: John believes in a free human life, with all its danger and kinds of emotions Bernard and Helmholtz will be exiled to distant islands, and John exiles himself to the countryside where he attempts to purify himself by self-flagellation. Curious World State citizens soon catch him in the act, and reporters descend on the lighthouse to film the news. Lenina comes and approaches John with her arms open. John reacts by brandishing his whip and screaming “Kill it! Kill it!”. The next morning he wakes up and, with anger and sadness at his submission to World State society, hangs himself. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: people want to see him hurting himself Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he was purifing from all the sins in that world and Linda represents one of them 3 - Characters analysis Bernard Max: An Alpha-Plus psychologist, rumored to have received alcohol in his blood surrogate, a circumstance that would explain his shortness and difficulty to fit in the community. His insecurity about his size and status makes him discontented with the World State more than from a systematic or philosophical criticism of it, just like his name may suggest recalling Karl Marx, the nineteenth-century author known for writing Capital, a monumental critique of capitalist society. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: everyboody is perfect, no flaws. he has a complex of inferiority “Odd, odd, odd, was Lenina’s verdict on Bernard Max”. (p. 87). Although he wants to be an individual, to feel strongly and act freely, Bernard shows little creativity or courage. When he returns with John from the Reservation, he uses his newfound popularity to participate in all of the aspects of World State society that he had previously criticized, such as promiscuous sex. In this Bernard proves himself a hypocrite. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Bernard proves himself to be a shameless opportunist, John the Savage: With an European appearance, he isthe son of parents from the World State (the Director and Linda) but raised in the Savage Reservation, John represents a challenge to the dystopia because he is unable to fit in the “savage” Indian culture and the “civilized” World State culture. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: because of his mom His entire worldview is based on his knowledge of Shakespeare’s imaginative world, which enables him frameworks to criticize World State values while confronting Mustapha Mond. On the other hand, John’s insistence on viewing the world through Shakespeare’s eyes sometimes blinds him to the reality of other characters, showing that even though not being chemically conditioned, he has also been through this process because of the terrible conditions of life in the Reservation. Then John associates sex with humiliation and pain and character with suffering, and Lenina with a “strumpet” label. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: not sure, but it seems that Huxley wants to show us that we are conditioned by society ayway, even though we dont notice it, but the morals, rules and valeus accepted make us act differently - culture make us conditioned John’s rejection of the shallow happiness of the World State, his inability to reconcile his love and lust for Lenina, and even his eventual suicide all reflect themes from Shakespeare. He is himself a Shakespearean character in a world where any poetry that does not sell a product is prohibited. John’s participation in the final orgy and his suicide at the end of the novel can be seen as the result of an insanity created by the fundamental conflict between his values and the reality of the world around him. He may be the contrast of Bernard, since Bernard's dissatisfaction with his society expresses resentment and imagined heroism, but John lives out his ideals. In turning aside Lenina's advances, John rejects the society's values. He acts by calling the Deltas to rebellion and in throwing out the soma. Finally, he faces the powerful Mustapha Mond and sets out on his own to create a life for himself, which ends in tragedy. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Unlike Bernard, who is corrupted by soma and the power of popularity, and Lenina, who is obsessed with her own physical comfort, John cannot morally reconcile World State with his own beliefs, and kills himself rather than living in the “brave new world” he is shown. Lenina: a vaccination worker at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. An "awfully pneumatic" and proud of her sexual attractiveness, Lenina seems at first a conventional woman of a society in which comfort, pleasure, and materialism are the only values. As the novel progresses, however, Lenina emerges as a conflicted character, more complex than she seems initially. Ultimately, her values are those of a conventional World State citizen: her primary means of relating to other people is through sex, and she is unable to share Bernard’s disaffection or to comprehend John’s alternate system of values. But although she may not acknowledge it, Lenina rebels against her conditioning for sexual promiscuity, like keeping a relation with Henry for a long time, by choosing the socially misfit Bernard Marx and by developing a violent passion for John the Savage. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Veryone belongs to everyone else - defies her culture’s conventions by dating one man exclusively for several months, Henry Foster Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: anti-social behavior Lenina's relationship with John brings her to an emotional, physical, but not intellectual experience of love. She represents the rare potential to see beyond conditioning, but cannot live freely. Without completely understanding her motivations, Lenina explores the emotional territory outside recreational sex with far more daring than Bernard, the supposed rebel. Linda: John’s mother, and a Beta. While visiting the New Mexico Savage Reservation, she became pregnant with the Director’s son. During a storm, she got lost, suffered a head injury and was left behind. A group of Indians found her and brought her to their village. Linda could not get an abortion on the Reservation, and she was too ashamed to return to the World State with a baby. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: natural birth is a horror Her conditioned promiscuity makes her an outsider facing the challenge of understanding traditional morality. So Linda wraps herself into a blanket of mescal and peyote, remaining intoxicated and barely aware of John and his needs as a growing young man. But she never seriously engages the culture she lives in. As a result, she remains isolated, condemning her son John to a marginal existence as well. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: trying to substitute soma For John, she feels an intense mixture of love and revulsion and this strange quality of his mother's feelings for him obviously has an effect on John himself, especially in his relationships with women. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Reading and meditating on Hamlet's rage at his mother's sexual relations, for example, impels John to express his passion in a violent attack on Popé — a failed attempt that nonetheless marks the beginning of John's independent, adult life. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: it gets worse when she gets obssed with Pope and does not care about John anymore After her long years of struggle and shame on the Savage Reservation, she goes back to the World State and throws herself into soma holidays, shortening her life by her addiction. The D.HC: The Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning — or "Tomakin," as Linda calls him — seems at first a strictly conventional man, absolutely conservative in his outlook and behavior. Respectful to superiors, but cruel with anti-social inferiors like Bernard, he upholds the highest standards of brave new world morality. Yet, paradoxically, he has had an intense experience of love and regret that has changed him internally. His sadness at losing Linda and the guilt he feels for leaving her represent truly human responses in an inhuman world. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: human emotion is still possible for the World State’s citizen With the D.H.C., Huxley emphasizes the connection of fear of discovery with hypocrisy. That’s because the D.H.C.'s hypocritical denunciation of anti-social behavior is inconsistent to the exposure of his relation with Linda and John. Again Huxley hints at the possibility of true feelings despite conditioning. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: for that world, this relationship would be an abomination Mustapha Mond: The Controller, one of the ten men who run the World State. In the novel it is his debate with John that lays out the fundamental difference in values between World State society and the kind of society represented in Shakespeare’s plays. Mustapha Mond is a paradoxical figure because he represents a combination of past and present, convention and rebellion. He reads Shakespeare and the Bible and he used to be an independent-minded scientist, but he also censors new ideas and controls a totalitarian state. For Mond, humankind’s ultimate goals are stability and happiness, as opposed to emotions, human relations, and individual expression. He uses his power for others' happiness, he explains, not his own. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: people in BNW are forbidden to read that , so he would be rebelling. consider anti-social behavior. HE is the self-concious ruling class with his own ideas, beling that the easy distribution of pleasure will keep the masses in line Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: this is more important than individual autonomy and humanity Helmholtz Watson:He is an Emotional Engineer who writes propagandas and represents a sharp contrast to his close friend, Bernard, since he shows himself to be emotionally stable even in his deep dissatisfaction. Bored with mindless recreational sex and soma-taking,he simply abstains, saving his energies for what he believes to be more valuable activity. In this, Helmholtz shows himself to be a more serious rebel than Bernard. In his struggle to find meaning and expression for his feeling of emptiness, Helmholtz emerges as one of the most fully human and engaging characters of the novel. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: it shows the meaningless life og the BNW For Bernard, Helmholtz is everything he wishes he could be: strong, intelligent, and attractive and very well liked and respected. Though he and Bernard share a dislike of the World State, Helmholtz condemns it for radically different reasons. Bernard dislikes the State because he is too weak to fit the social position he has been assigned; Helmholtz because he is too strong. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: and he wants some meaning for his life and work Compared to John, they are very similar in spirit; both love poetry, and both are intelligent and critical of the World State. But there is an enormous cultural gap between them. Even when Helmholtz sees the genius in Shakespeare’s poetry, he cannot help but laugh at the mention of mothers, fathers, and marriage—concepts that are vulgar and ridiculous in the World State. The conversations between Helmholtz and John illustrate that even the most reflective and intelligent World State member is defined by the culture in which he has been raised. Henry Foster: An Alpha who is seeing Lenina Crowne. He is a typically conventional Londoner. Fanny Crowne: Lenina's friend. Fanny represents the conventional views of the brave new world. She encourages Lenina to pursue John sexually if he will not take the lead. Popé:: Linda's lover in Malpais. Popé's involvement with Linda inspires John's deep revulsion for sex. 3.1 - Main Themes The Use of Technology to Control Society Brave New World warns of the dangers of giving the state control over new and powerful technologies. One illustration of this theme is the control of reproduction through technological and medical intervention, including the surgical removal of ovaries, the Bokanovsky Process, and hypnopaedic conditioning. Another is the creation of complicated entertainment machines that generate both harmless leisure and the high levels of consumption and production that are the basis of the World State’s stability, since the motto “WHEN THE INDIVIDUAL FEELS, SOCIETY REELS”. Soma is a third example of the kind of medical, biological, and psychological techniques used to program citizens. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: post-war reflex Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: essential tool for social control in the dystopia because it prevents the dissatisfaction and all the stress society my have. Even tought some feelings still happen over the condition. It is the "solutions" for all their problems and so avoids REVOLUTIONARY results, keeping stability by controling the emotions It dramatizes the emptiness of a life controlled by the consumption of goods and recreational sex. Violent passion is avoided, but people still need a chemical "Violent Passion Surrogate" once a month. Most women are sterile or practice contraception, yet they must submit to a chemically induced fake pregnancy to maintain their physical and psychological health. Human nature has not changed; the World State has simply redefined it and compensated for the difference with chemicals. It is also important to recognize the distinction between science and technology. The state uses science as a means to build technology and censors and limits science since it sees the fundamental basis behind science, the search for truth, as threatening to the State’s control. The Dangerous of an All-Powerful State Like George Orwell’s 1984, this novel depicts a dystopia in which an all-powerful state controls the behaviors and actions of its people in order to preserve its own stability and power. But a major difference between the two is that, whereas in 1984 control is maintained by constant government surveillance, secret police, and torture, power in Brave New World is maintained through technological interventions that start before birth and last until death, and that actually change what people want. The government of 1984 maintains power through force and intimidation. The government of Brave New World retains control by making its citizens so happy and superficially fulfilled that they don’t care about their personal freedom. In Brave New World the consequences of state control are a loss of dignity, morals, values, and emotions—in short, a loss of humanity. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: motto Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: personal identity is sacrificed in the name of the stability Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: we are controlled by pleasure, so we dont rebel The Consumer Society The “Neo-Pavlovian Conditioning” process exposes babies to books and flowers and then violence: explosions, sirens and electric shocks, in order to develop and “instinctive” hate for books and nature. While the attitudes and behaviors of World State citizens at first appear bizarre, cruel, or scandalous, many clues point to the conclusion that the World State is simply an extreme—but logically developed—version of our society’s economic values, in which individual happiness is defined as the ability to satisfy needs, and success as a society is equated with economic growth and prosperity. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: the price of stability The Incompatibility of Happiness and Truth The almost universal use of the drug soma is probably the most pervasive example of how people is conditioned to avoid facing the truth about their own situation. Soma blurs the realities of the present and replaces them with happy hallucinations, and is thus a tool for promoting social stability. According to Mustapha Mond, the World State prioritizes happiness at the expense of truth by design: he believes that people are better off with happiness than with truth. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: people need the emotional release known as catharsis in order to be happy. The two characters disagree about how to provide that release, with John arguing for the value of art, and Mustapha arguing for the safety and efficiency of drugs. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: immediate gratification of every citizen’s desire for food, sex, drugs, nice clothes, and other consumer items - SHALLOW THINGS From Mond’s discussion with John, it is possible to identify two main types of truth that the World State seeks to eliminate. First, as Mond’s own past indicates, the World State controls and muffles all efforts by citizens to gain any sort of scientific, or empirical truth. Second, the government attempts to destroy all kinds of “human” truths, such as love, friendship, and personal connection. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: art/science has the potential to enlighten people about their own oppression, and cause them to feel dissatisfaction and Dissatisfaction is bad for production, and leads to revolution 3.1 .1- Topics Ford, “My Ford,” “Year of Our Ford,” etc. Throughout Brave New World, the citizens of the World State refer to Mustapha Mond as “Lord” (i.e., Christ). This demonstrates that even at the level of casual conversation and habit, religion has been replaced by reverence for technology. During the tour of the Centre, children make the T sign, opposite to the cross, referring to the Henry Ford’s Model T automobile and it emphasizes that the World State appropriated the Christian symbol and turned it into the Fordian T. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: symbol for everything that is holy and conventional in the world state The fixed date is also used to emphasize the differences between the reader’s world and the futuristic world of the novel Alienation and Brainwashing Brainwashing has successfully alienated citizens from the human experiences, such as death, love,and pain. in which art and science seek to illuminate. The conditioning by technological processes aim to make the people accept and even like their "inescapable social destiny." That destiny occurs within a Caste System (or social hierarchy) ranging from the intelligent Alpha Pluses down to the working drone Epsilons. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Epsilons do not mind being Epsilons, Henry and Lenina tell each other, because they know nothing else. The Hypnopaedia process gives each child a consciousness social identity and the characters behave according to the precepts of the sleep-teaching, in which children learn the “moral education.” Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: THE POWER OF WORDS Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: they are learned to accept their condition and to dislike human emotions and processes, like fertilization and words related to that, like mother, family...OFFENSIVE WORDS Bernard Marx, Helmholtz Watson, and John are alienated, each for his own reasons. Bernard is alienated because he is a misfit, too small and powerless for the position he has been conditioned to enjoy. Helmholtz is alienated for the opposite reason: he is too intelligent even to play the role of an Alpha Plus. John is alienated on multiple levels and at multiple sites: not only does the Indian community reject him, but he is both unwilling and unable to become part of the World State. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: even being conccious about the processes cannot escape from them.Huxley makes the point that all people — civilized or uncivilized — are vulnerable to powerful suggestion. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: by shakespear's imaginative wolrld Sex At the heart of the World State’s control of its population is its control over sex and reproductive rights. Reproductive rights are controlled through an authoritarian system that sterilizes about two-thirds of women, requires the rest to use contraceptives, and surgically removes ovaries when it needs to produce new humans. The act of sex is controlled by a system of social rewards for promiscuity and lack of commitment, since all of our human emotions, like love, is a threat to stability. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: love x sex - to blur our emotions. Everyone belongs to everyone - hypnopaedia process John, an outsider, is tortured by his desire for Lenina and her inability to return his love as such. The conflict between John’s desire for love and Lenina’s desire for sex illustrates the profound difference in values between the World State and the Reservation. "Orgy-porgy" — the conventional close of the Solidarity Service — uses group sex as a method of breaking down the perceived differences between people and so increasing social stability. What might once have been the spontaneous expression of sexual feeling becomes here merely another mandatory state activity. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: SOLIDARITY SERVICE - kind of religious service that expects the union with the Greater Being - Ford - and includes such rituals as the sign of the T, blessed soma, and solidarity hymns. Under the influence of the sacramental soma, the ceremony dissolves into an "orgy-porgy" of sex.We can see the combination og RELIGION AND SEX, religious ecstasy and sex excitement. Spiritual ritual that ends up in an orgy Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: we are going to see that when Bernard goes there, instead of feeling less different, he feels more alone Emotions, music, scenery — all the elements of romance come already engineered by the state, showing the artificiality of their world. Pneumatic The word is used frequently to describe two things: Lenina’s body and chairs. Pneumatic is an adjective that usually means that something has air pockets or works by means of compressed air. In Lenina’s case, the word is used by both Henry Foster and Benito Hoover to describe what she’s like to have sex with, referring to her flesh or her bosom, as well-rounded, balloon-like, or bouncy. The use of this odd word to describe the physical characteristics of both a woman and a piece of furniture underscores the novel’s theme that human sexuality has been degraded to the level of a commodity. Shakespeare Through John’s use of Shakespeare and his language, the novel makes contact with the rich themes explored in plays like The Tempest. Shakespeare’s plays provide many examples of precisely the kind of human relations—passionate, intense, and often tragic—that the World State is committed to eliminating. 3.2 - Important quotations (1) ”The theme of Brave New World is not the advancement of science as such; it is the advancement of science and as it affects human individuals.” (p.8) (2) “These far from painless operations will be directed by highly centralized totalitarian governments. Inevitably so; for the immediate future is likely to resemble the immediate past, and in the immediate past rapid technological changes, taking place in as mass- producing economy and among a population predominantly propertyless, have always tended to produce economic and social confusion. To deal with confusion, power has been centralized and governments will be more or less completely totalitarian... .Only a large-scale popular movement toward decentralization and self-help can arrest the present tendency toward stations. At present there is no sign that such a movement will take place” (p.10-11). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: all the technologial advances/changes would lead people to a totalitarian system, in global scale (3) ”As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends to increase. And the dictator will do well to encourage that freedom. In conjunction with the freedom to daydream under the influence of dope, and movies and radio, it will help to reconcile his subjects to the servitude which is their fate.”(p.13). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: drugs + midia + sex + leisure = blind people to their condition and the FALSE impression of happiness, so we accept our destiny without questioning (4) ”I projected it six hundred years into the future. Today it seems quite possible that the horror may be upon us within a single century. That is, if we retrain from blowing ourselves to smithereens in the interval. Indeed, unless we choose to decentralize and to use applied science, not as the end to which human beings are to be made the means, but as the means to producing a race off free individuals, we have only two alternatives to choose from: either a number of national, militarized totalitarism, having as their root the terror of the atomic bomb and as their consequence the destruction of civilization; or else, one supranational totalitarianism, called into existence by the social chaos resulting from rapid technological progress in general and the atomic revolution in particular, and developing under the need for efficiency and stability, into the welfare-tyranny of Utopia. You pays your money and you takes your choice.” (p.13) Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he writes the novel after the 1st war (1932), imaging a future 600 years far from now. But with the 2nd war, technology, bombs, this future endedp up closer and even worse than he imagined.Just like in the book, we would have to choose between destruction and control - 1946 (5) Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield, the World State’s motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY. (p.15). (6) “Bokanovsky’s Process”, repeated the Director (...). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: DESHUMANIZED process because nothing is natural. given individual to his or her proper place in the social and economic hierarchy. One egg, one embryo, one adult - normality. But a bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult. Makingninety-six human beings grow where only one grew before. Progress. (...) “Can’t you see? Can’t you see?” He raised a hand; his expression was solemn. “Bokanovsky’s Process is one of the major instruments of social stability!” (...) The voice was almost tremulous with enthusiasm. “You really know where you are. For the first time in history.” He quoted the planetary motto. “Community, Identity, Stability.” Grand words. “If we could bokanovskify indefinitely the whole problem would be solved.” (p.17-18-19). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: we see the science used to produce techno to control people. Even the number of people, so you can stabilize population Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: when one of the boys in the tour asks the Director the advantage of the Bokanosky. If you procude standard people, people will not know differences and accept their inescapable social destiny (7) - “And that,” put in the Director sententiously, “that is the secret of happiness and virtue- liking what you’ve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny.” ( pg 26). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: eliminate the differences and felings of dissafaction by social predestinators - NO CHOICES. Just like Huxley says about totalitarian governos, LOVE FOR SERVITURE (8) The screaming of the babies suddenly changed its tone. There was something desperate, almost insane, about the sharp spasmodic yelps to which they now gave utterance. Their little bodies twitched and stiffened; their limbs moved jerkily as if to the tug of unseen wires. (...) “They’ll grow up with what the psychologists used to call an ’instinctive’ hatred of books and flowers. Reflexes unalterably conditioned. They’ll be safe from books and botany all their lives.” The Director turned to his nurses. (p.30). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: they are now in the Infant Nursery - NEO-PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONING PROCESS in which eight-month-old babies, all exactly alike (a Bokanovsky Group, it was evident) and all (since their caste was Delta) dressed in khaki, are tortured to dislike books and flowers - IT maximizes economic CONSUMPTION Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: you dont consume if you stand reading books or watching the nature (9) (...) you couldn’t have lower-caste people wasting the Community’s time over books, and that there was always the risk of their reading something which might undesirably decondition one of their reflexes, yet. well, he couldn’t understand about the flowers. (...) Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: the delight literature can bring is dangerous for stability - they decondition (opposite of condition), the power of words Primroses and landscapes, he pointed out, have one grave defect: they are gratuitous. A love of nature keeps no factories busy. It was decided to abolish the love of nature, at any rate among the lower classes; to abolish the love of nature (...). (p. 31). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: you are conditioned to consume, not to love. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: it is subistituted by love of country sports, so you have to consume many products to do that (10) “Moral education, which ought never, in any circumstances, to be rational.” (p. 34). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: sleep-teaching, HYPNOPAEDIA PROCESS, we are in a vurnerable moment, sleeping, and they are producing unquestioning assumptions and loyalty (11) - “But now it’s switched over to Elementary Class Consciousness.” Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: still HYPNOPAEDIA PROCESS “... all wear green,” said a soft but very distinct voice, beginning in the middle of a sentence, “and Delta Children wear khaki. Oh no, I don’t want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They’re too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I’m so glad I’m a Beta.” (...) “Alpha children wear grey They work much harder than we do, because they’re so frightfully clever. I’m really awfully glad I’m a Beta, because I don’t work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don’t want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They’re too stupid to be able...” (...) In brief, hypnopædia. “The greatest moralizing and socializing force of all time.” (p.35-36). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: if they are uncounciouness "happy" with their condition, they would not complain - they have their own social indentity - PREJUDICE against others caste Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: they are going to listen to it repeadly so they can absorve it uncounciounsly Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: the power of the words!!!! the state uses the word to shape people's consciounsness and manipulate them to a particular social and economic goal “But all these suggestions are our suggestions!” The Director almost shouted in his triumph. “Suggestions from the State.” He banged the nearest table. “It therefore follows .” (p.36). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: the person is a product of the State's desire, no individualism of self-desire, and the suggestions become the persons themselves (12) - “You all remember,” said the Controller, in his strong deep voice, “you all remember, I suppose, that beautiful and inspired saying of Our Ford’s: “History is bunk!”. (p. 40). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Mustapha Mond, considered Ford himself, he understand both worlds because it can unmake the condition (13) Home, home - a few small rooms, stiflingly over-inhabited by a man, by a periodically teeming woman, by a rabble of boys and girls of all ages. No air, no space; an under-sterilized prison; darkness, disease, and smells. (...) What suffocating intimacies, what dangerous, insane, obscene relationships between the members of the family group! Maniacally, the mother brooded over her children (her children), brooded over them like a cat over its kittens (...) Our Freud had been the first to reveal the appalling dangers of family life. The world was full of fathers- was therefore full of misery; full of mothers- therefore of every kind of perversion from sadism to chastity; full of brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts- full of madness and suicide. (...) Family, monogamy, romance. Everywhere exclusiveness, a narrow channelling of impulse and energy. “But everyone belongs to everyone else,” he concluded, citing the hypnopædic proverb. (...) Their world didn’t allow them to take things easily, didn’t allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy. What with mothers and lovers, what with the prohibitions they were not conditioned to obey, what with the temptations and the lonely remorses, what with all the diseases and the endless isolating pain, what with the uncertainties and the poverty- they were forced to feel strongly. And feeling strongly (and strongly, what was more, in solitude, in hopelessly individual isolation), how could they be stable? (...) “Stability,” said the Controller, “stability. No civilization without social stability. No social stability without individual stability.” His voice was a trumpet. (p. 43-47). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: well, you are not supposed to have freedom to do whatever you want. FAMILIES COMPARED TO ANIMALS Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: you are learned to be promiscued and accept it as indisputable (14) “I really do think you ought to be careful. It’s such horribly bad form to go on and on like this with one man. At forty, or thirty-five, it wouldn't be so bad. But at your age, Lenina! No, it really won’t do. And you know how strongly the D.H.C. objects to anything intense or long-drawn. Four months of Henry Foster, without having another man-why, he’d be furious if he knew...” (p.46). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: this is Fanny talking to Lenina while they are in the dressing room, andFaany is advicing her to have more relationships because they were learned to be promiscuous. Remember Aldous prediction? Totalitarian governments would enforce the sexual freedom in order to keep the system. but Leninaa is ok with just one, showing her uncouciouness rebelion - every one belongs to every one else (15) “The Nine Years’ War began in A.F. 141, the great Economic Collapse. There was a choice between World Control and destruction. Between stability and....” (p-53). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: it was like a salvation from chaos - the death of individual freedom. Chaos lead to control, totalitarian governments (16) “He’s so ugly!” said Fanny. - “But I rather like his looks.” - “And then so small.” Fanny made a grimace; smallness was so horribly and typically low-caste. (...) “They say somebody made a mistake when he was still in the bottle- thought he was a Gamma and put alcohol into his blood-surrogate. That’s why he’s so stunted.”. (p.51). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Fanny and Lenina still in the dressing room, talking about Bernard and his associaton with lower castes is terrible. Lenina's wishes to stay with him is a sign of rebelion too, even though it is uncounciouness (17) “In the end,” said Mustapha Mond, “the Controllers realized that force was no good. The slower but infinitely surer methods of ectogenesis, neo-Pavlovian conditioning and hypnopædia...”(...) An intensive propaganda against viviparous reproduction....”(...). Accompanied by a campaign against the Past; by the closing of museums, the blowing up of historical monuments (luckily most of them had already been destroyed during the Nine Years’ War); by the suppression of all books published before A.F. 15O. (...) “The introduction of Our Ford’s first T-Model (...) “Chosen as the opening date of the new era.” (...)“All crosses had their tops cut and became T’s. There was also a thing called God.”(p. 56-58). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Mond - historical facts that led the creation of BNW (18) “(...) Old men in the bad old days used to renounce, retire, take to religion, spend their time reading, thinking-thinking!” (...) “Now - such is progress-the old men work, the old men copulate, the old men have no time, no leisure from pleasure, not a moment to sit down and think or if ever by some unlucky chance such a crevice of time should yawn in the solid substance of their distractions, there is always soma, delicious soma, (...) ” (p. 62). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: instability Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: you can forget all your problems - no obstacles to happiness (19) The hangars were staffed by a single Bokanovsky Group, and the men were twins, identically small, black and hideous. Bernard gave his orders in the sharp, rather arrogant and even offensive tone of one who does not feel himself too secure in his superiority. (...) Bernard’s physique as hardly better than that of the average Gamma. (...) Contact with members of the lower castes always reminded him painfully of this physical inadequacy. (...) Would the creature treat him with the respect due to his caste? For Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons had been to some extent conditioned to associate corporeal mass with social superiority. Indeed, a faint hypnopædic prejudice in favour of size was universal. (...) The mockery made him feel an outsider. (...) A chronic fear of being slighted made him avoid his equals, made him stand, where his inferiors were concerned, self- consciously on his dignity. How bitterly he envied men like Henry Foster and Benito Hoover! Men who never had to shout at an Epsilon to get an order obeyed; men who took their position for granted. (p. 69). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: conditioned prejudice Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he felt social excluded from his "equals" Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: his inferiors should respect him anyway because of his caste, but he felt insubordinated (20) “I’m thinking of a queer feeling, a feeling that I’ve got something important to say and the power to say it - I only don’t know what it is, and I can’t make any use of the power. If there was some different way of writing. Or something else to write about.” (...) “I’m pretty good at inventing phrases - you know, (...) about something hypnopædically obvious. But that doesn’t seem enough. It’s not enough for the phrases to be good; what you make with them ought to be good too.” (...)Yes, and more intense, more violent.(...) But how can one be violent about the sort of things one’s expected to write about?(...) Can you say something about nothing?”. (p.73). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Helmoltz writes so many SHALLOW THINGS, MEANINLESS thtat he is demanded to, to make people fell comfortable, but he wants to do something good for them, something meaninful to his life and work (21) - “I suppose Epsilons don’t really mind being Epsilons,” she said aloud. - “Of course they don’t. How can they? They don’t know what it’s like being anything else.”. - “I’m glad I’m not an Epsilon,” said Lenina, with conviction. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: remarked Lenina, voicing the hypnopædic prejudices of her caste. (...) “My word,” said Lenina, “I’m glad I’m not a Gamma. - “And if you were an Epsilon,” said Henry, “your conditioning would have made you no less thankful that you weren’t a Beta or an Alpha.” (...) - “Yes, everybody’s happy now,” echoed Lenina. They had heard the words repeated a hundred and fifty times every night for twelve years. (p.77-78). (22) “Yes, I thought it was wonderful,” he lied and looked away; the sight of her transfigured face was at once an accusation and an ironical reminder of his own separateness. He was as miserably isolated now as he had been when the service began-more isolated by reason of his unreplenished emptiness, his dead satiety. (...) He was utterly miserable, and perhaps (her shining eyes accused him), perhaps it was his own fault. (...). (pg 86). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: the reason for this ritual is to break down the differences between people and so increase social stability. But not with Bernard. Emotions, music, scenery — all the elements of romance come already engineered by the state. It plays an important rule such as soma, to eliminate inhibitions. ARTIFICIALITY Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Solidarity Service - Than, they dance, drink soma and the night ends in pneumatic sex (23) - “But I do,” he insisted. “It makes me feel as though .” he hesitated, searching for words with which to express himself, “as though I were more me, if you see what I mean. More on my own, not so completely a part of something else. Not just a cell in the social body. Doesn’t it make you feel like that, Lenina?” Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Bernard stopped the helicopter to look at the sea, appreciate the nature, anti-social bahevior. But Lenina was crying. “It’s horrible, it’s horrible,” she kept repeating. “And how can you talk like that about not wanting to be a part of the social body? After all, everyone works for every one else. We can’t do without any one. Even Epsilons .” Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he wants and adult and emotional relationship, not just sex - “Yes, I know,” said Bernard derisively. “’Even Epsilons are useful’! So am I. And I damned well wish I weren’t!” Lenina was shocked by his blasphemy. “Bernard!” She protested in a voice of amazed distress. “How can you?” In a different key, “How can I?” he repeated meditatively. “No, the real problem is: How is it that I can’t, or rather-because, after all, I know quite well why I can’t-what would it be like if I could, if I were free-not enslaved by my conditioning.” - But, Bernard, you’re saying the most awful things.” - “Don’t you wish you were free, Lenina?” - “I don’t know what you mean. I am free. Free to have the most wonderful time. Everybody’s happynowadays.” He laughed, “Yes, ’Everybody’s happy nowadays.’ We begin giving the children that at five. But wouldn’t you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody else’s way.” (...) - “why you don’t take soma when you have these dreadful ideas of yours. You’d forget all about them. And instead of feeling miserable, you’d be jolly. So jolly,” (p.90-91). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: than they go back to his apartment and they have sex, as required (24) - “Everyone says I’m awfully pneumatic,” said Lenina reflectively (...). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: deshumanized sex. Bernard does not agree - “Awfully.” But there was an expression of pain in Bernard’s eyes. “Like meat,” he was thinking. She looked up with a certain anxiety. “But you don’t think I’m too plump, do you?” He shook his head. “Like so much meat”. (...) “She thinks of herself that way. She doesn’t mind being meat”. (...) - “I still rather wish it had all ended differently.” - “Differently?” Were there other endings? Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: the condition was to have relations just by sex - “I didn’t want it to end with our going to bed,” he specified. Lenina was astonished. (...) He began to talk a lot of incomprehensible and dangerous nonsense.(...). - “Never put off till tomorrow the fun you can have today,” she said gravely. “(...) - “I want to know what passion is,” she heard him saying. “I want to feel something strongly.” - “When the individual feels, the community reels,” Lenina pronounced. - “Well, why shouldn’t it reel a bit?” (p.92). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: his rebel instinct, but just by words (25) - “I actually dream about it sometimes,” the Director went on in a low voice. “Dream of being woken up by that peal of thunder and finding her gone; dream of searching and searching for her under the trees.” He lapsed into the silence of reminiscence. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: What made him feel shy was the knowledge that the Director disapproved and yet had been betrayed into doing the forbidden thing - “You must have had a terrible shock,” said Bernard, almost enviously. At the sound of his voice the Director started into a guilty realization of where he was; shot a glance at Bernard, and averting his eyes, blushed darkly; looked at him again with sudden suspicion and, angrily on his dignity, “Don’t imagine,” he said, “that I’d had any indecorous relation with the girl. Nothing emotional, nothing long-drawn. It was all perfectly healthy and normal.” (...) Furious with himself for having given away a discreditable secret, he vented his rage on Bernard. (...) “If ever I hear again of any lapse from a proper standard of infantile decorum, I shall ask for your transference to a Sub-Centre-preferably to Iceland.”. (p.95-96). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: the Director shows emotion and remorse - a social SIN he used to forbide-about what happened with the girl and even a sign of love, and Bernard notices it and it stimulates him more about going there to find out what happened. (26) SECOND PART- She liked even less what awaited her at the entrance to the pueblo, where their guide had left them while he went inside for instructions. The dirt, to start with, the piles of rubbish, the dust, the dogs, the flies. Her face wrinkled up into a grimace of disgust. She held her handkerchief to her nose. (...) “But these people have never heard of Our Ford, and they aren’t civilized. So there’s no point in...” (...) She felt in her pocket for her soma-only to discover that, by some unprecedented oversight, she had left the bottle down at the rest- house. Bernard’s pockets were also empty. Lenina was left to face the horrors of Malpais unaided. (p.105-106). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: second part - savagerery X civilization = border in which you can die eletrocuted if you touch. It keeps the savages in their place. no communication whatever with the civilized world. still preserve their repulsive habits and customs. marriage, babies are born, Christianity, rituals, diseases... (27) The spectacle of two young women giving breast to their babies made her blush and turn away her face. She had never seen anything so indecent in her life. And what made it worse was that, instead of ignoring it, Bernard proceeded to make open comments on this revoltingly viviparous scene. “What a wonderfully intimate relationship,” he said, deliberately outrageous. “And what an intensity of feeling it must generate! I often think one may have missed something in not having had a mother. And perhaps you’ve missed something in not being a mother, Lenina. Imagine yourself sitting there with a little baby of your own...” (p.107). (28) - “I ought to have been there,” the young man went on. “Why wouldn’t they let me be the sacrifice? (...) “For the sake of the pueblo-to make the rain come and the corn grow. And then to show that I can bear pain without crying out. Yes,”(...) “to show that I’m a man. (...) They disliked me for my complexion. It’s always been like that. Always.” Tears stood in the young man’s eyes; he was ashamed and turned away. (p110-111) Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: they saw a ritual, a mix of Christianism and Indian Religion, of sacrifice to make rain come and the Savage wanted to be there cause he was very brave and to show his value (29) “If you knew how glad... - after all these years! A civilized face. Yes, and civilized clothes. (...) “I suppose John told you. What I had to suffer - and not a gramme of soma to be had. Only a drink of mescal every now and then, when Popé used to bring it. Popé is a boy I used to know. (...) And I was so ashamed. Just think of it: me, a Beta - having a baby: put yourself in my place.” (...) there wasn’t anything like an Abortion Centre here. (...) “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said in response to Lenina’s involuntary grimace of disgust. “I oughtn’t to have done that. But what are you to do when there aren’t any handkerchiefs? I remember how it used to upset me, all that dirt, and nothing being aseptic. I had an awful cut on my head when they first brought me here. You can’t imagine what they used to put on it. Filth, just filth. ’Civilization is Sterilization,’ I used to say to them. (...) But of course they didn’t understand. How should they? And in the end I suppose I got used to it. (...) This beastly wool isn’t like acetate. It lasts and lasts. And you’re supposed to mend it if it gets torn. But I’m a Beta; I worked in the Fertilizing Room; nobody ever taught me to do anything like that. Besides, it never used to be right to mend clothes. Throw them away when they’ve got holes in them and buy new. ‘The more stitches, the less riches.’ Isn’t that right? Mending is antisocial. But it’s all different here. It’s like living with lunatics. Everything they do is mad.” (...) Everybody belongs to everyone else, don’t they?” (...) “Well, here,” the other went on, “nobody’s supposed to belong to more than one person.”. And if you have people in the ordinary way, the others think you’re wicked and anti-social. They hate and despise you. (...) And of course they don’t know anything about Malthusian Drill, or bottles, or anything of that sort. So they’re having children all the time-like dogs. And yet John was a great comfort to me. I don’t know what I should have done without him. (...)I never could make him understand that that was what civilized people ought to do. Being mad is infectious I believe. Anyhow, John seems to have caught it from the Indians. (...) (p. 113-115). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Linda is described as a moster, appereantly and by the eyes of a civilized person Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: alcoholic liquor Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: she got used cause she had no other alternative, but she never forgot her traditions Comment by Beatriz Nogueirade Oliveira: she reproduced the hypnopaedia lessons in which you are learned that old clothes are bad, you new new ones - consumerism Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Linda had feeling for John, showing how human nature may not be totally condiotioned Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: she wants to condition John and teach him the moral assumptions (30) ...the book was called The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. (...)“Popé brought it,” she said. (...)“It was lying in one of the chests of the Antelope Kiva. It’s supposed to have been there for hundreds of years. I expect it’s true, because I looked at it, and it seemed to be full of nonsense. Uncivilized. (p.123). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: John starts telling his story for Bernard. Linda taught him how to read Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Linda about shakeaspere book - inspiration to try killing Pope (31) - “Alone, always alone,” the young man was saying. (...) Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: When John finishes telling his past, they both realize they are alone because they are diferrent - “Are you?” John looked surprised. “I thought that in the Other Place. I mean, Linda always said that nobody was ever alone there.” Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: the indians did not allow him to joi the rituals because of his Europerean apperance and his mother's sexual life, and he TORTURES himselg for that - he is rejected and humiliated. JOHN also felt alone because he was rejected - “You see,” he said, mumbling and with averted eyes, “I’m rather different from most people, I suppose. If one happens to be decanted different .” (p.128). (32) - “I wonder if you’d like to come back to London with us?” he asked, making the first move in a whose strategy he had been secretly elaborating ever since, in the little house, he had realized who the “father” of this young savage must be. “Would you like that?” Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: OPPORTUNIST (...) - “O brave new world,” he repeated. “O brave new world that has such people in it. Let’s start at once.” (.129-130). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: John was curious to know there and it seemed very interesting - quote ftom THE TEMPEST (title) - THIS IS AN IRONY BECAUSE WE, THE READERS, ALREADY KNOW THE WORLD STATE AND WE CAN IMAGINE THE DISAPPOINTMENT FOR JOHN AND HE GETS AWARE AS WELL, - POEM what it means to build a new society (33) There, on a low bed, the sheet flung back, dressed in a pair of pink one- piece zippyjamas, lay Lenina, fast asleep and so beautiful in the midst of her curls, so touchingly childish with her pink toes and her grave sleeping face, so trustful in the helplessness of her limp hands and melted limbs, that the tears came to his eyes. (...) he entered the room, he knelt on the floor beside the bed. He gazed, he clasped his hands, his lips moved. “Her eyes,” he murmured, Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: John thinks that Bernand and Lenina had left and he enters their apartment Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: WE can say that he was also king of condiotined by his life in the reservation and the problems he faced made him associate sex with something bad, showing that ALL PEOPLE, CIVILIZED OR NOT, ARE VULNERABLE TO STRONG SUGGESTIONS “Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice; Handlest in thy discourse O! that her hand, In whose comparison all whites are ink Writing their own reproach; to whose soft seizure The cygnet’s down is harsh .” (p.134). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Troilo e Cressida. He had to control himself not to touch her, shows respect and poetic delicacy. It also shows us his "condition" in which he is repressed in sexual matters (34) “A public example,” he was saying. “In this room, because it contains more high-caste workers than any other in the Centre. (...) The greater a man’s talents, the greater his power to lead astray. It is better that one should suffer than that many should be corrupted. Consider the matter dispassionately, Mr. Foster, and you will see that no offence is so heinous as unorthodoxy of behaviour. Murder kills only the individual-and, after all, what is an individual?” With a sweeping gesture he indicated the rows of microscopes, the test-tubes, the incubators. “We can make a new one with the greatest ease. Unorthodoxy threatens more than the life of a mere individual; it strikes at Society itself.”. (...) “In Iceland he will have small opportunity to lead others astray by his unfordly example.” (p.138). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: THIRD PART - the DIC is waiting with Hnery Foster to humilate the transfer of Bernard to a distance place because he was accused of anti-fordian behavior, because of his sexual life, soma and sport views... he has threaten the stability (35) “But I’m Linda, I’m Linda. You made me have a baby,”(...) There was a sudden and appalling hush; eyes floated uncomfortably, not knowing where to look. The Director went suddenly pale, stopped struggling and stood, his hands on her wrists, staring down at her, horrified. “Yes, a baby-and I was its mother.”. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: She recognizes the DHI. her appereance horrifies and stonishes the crowd. Being a mother is that was past a joke: it was an obscenity (...) fell on his knees in front of the Director, and said in a clear voice: “My father!” (p.140). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: humiliation - and the Director shows himself a hypocritical because he condenmed Bernard's actions, but he had anti-social SINS as well. It hurts the Director's authority to punish Bernard. After all this dishonor, he resigned his position in the Centre. (36) It was John, then, they were all after. And as it was only through Bernard, his accredited guardian, that John could be seen. Bernard now found himself, for the first time in his life, treated not merely normally, but as a person of outstanding importance. (...) Success went fizzily to Bernard’s head, and in the process completely reconciled him (as any good intoxicant should do) to a world which, up till then, he had found very unsatisfactory. In so far as it recognized him as important, the order of things was good. But, reconciled by his success, he yet refused to forego the privilege of criticizing this order. For the act of criticizing heightened his sense of importance, made him feel larger. Moreover, he did genuinely believe that there were things to criticize. (At the same time, he genuinely liked being a success and having all the girls he wanted). (p.144-145) Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he forgets all the objections to recreational sex and trhrows himself into promiscuity and soma!!! (37) He was not worthy, not. Their eyes for a moment met. What treasures hers promised! A queen’s ransom of temperament. Hastily he looked away, disengaged his imprisoned arm. He was obscurely terrified lest she should cease to be something he could feel himself unworthy of. (p.155) Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: after they come back to the feelies (popular entertainment that combines the sens of smell and touch in a movie format)it exists to smooth the senses and the mind keeps untouched. he desaproved the content of the movie, which is pornografic - erotic power - and contains the comon prejudice against the black people. John compares him to Othelo, whose hero is also a black man. because of his education and life, he has been conditioned to associate sex with dangerous Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: she expected to have sex with him, but he just called a taxi for her and said goodbye, letting without understanding anything- she thinks he does not like her (38) In the end Bernard had to slink back, diminished, to his rooms and inform the impatient assembly that the Savage would not be appearing that evening. The news was received with indignation. The men were furious at having been tricked into behaving politely to this insignificant fellowwith the unsavoury reputation and the heretical opinions. The higher their position in the hierarchy, the deeper their resentment. (p.159) Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: John refuses to attend a party with high-level caste members after being disgusted with his new knowledges about the Brokanosky process etc - One os his first sign of RESISTENCE and disillusion Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: an inferior creature refusing to meet them was an absurd - but was indefferent to them (39) They duly ate, but ignored him; drank and were either rude to his face or talked to one another about him, loudly and offensively, as though he had not been there. (...) What should have been the crowning moment of Bernard’s whole career had turned out to be the moment of his greatest humiliation. (...) A few minutes later, however, he thought better of it and took four tablets of soma. (p.160-161). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: people were just pretending to like Bernard because of their interest in John The intoxication of success had evaporated; he was soberly his old self;(...), the old self seemed unprecedentedly heavier than the surrounding atmosphere.To this deflated Bernard the Savage showed himself unexpectedly sympathetic. - “Because I’m unhappy again; that’s why.” - “Well, I’d rather be unhappy than have the sort of false, lying happiness you were having here.” (p.163) Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: SUCCESS X HAPPINESS. For John is was fake, but for Bernard, it was enough (40) Bernard’s other victim-friend was Helmholtz. When, discomfited, he came and asked once more for the friendship which, in his prosperity, he had not thought it worth his while to preserve. Helmholtz gave it; and gave it without a reproach, without a comment, as though he had forgotten that there had ever been a quarrel. Touched, Bernard felt himself at the same time humiliated by this magnanimity of Helmholtz’s character.(...) Bernard was duly grateful (it was an enormous comfort to have his friend again) and also duly resentful (it would be pleasure to take some revenge on Helmholtz for his generosity).(p.164) Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: not by soma Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: insulting the poems (41) Helmholtz and the Savage took to one another at once. So cordially indeed that Bernard felt a sharp pang of jealousy. In all these weeks he had never come to so close an intimacy with the Savage as Helmholtz immediately achieved. (...) He was ashamed of his jealousy and alternately made efforts of will and took soma to keep himself from feeling it. But the efforts were not very successful; and between the soma-holidays there were, of necessity, intervals. The odious sentiment kept on returning. (p.166) Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he is declaining in his character (42) The mother and father (grotesque obscenity) forcing the daughter to have someone she didn’t want! And the idiotic girl not saying that she was having someone else whom (for the moment, at any rate) she preferred! In its smutty absurdity the situation was irresistibly comical. (p.168). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: even though Helmt. shows emotions, he is still condiotioned and cant scape this feelings imposed on him - while John is reading Romeo and Juliet, and we see that actually, he cant connect with real poetry (43) She smiled at him with a luscious tenderness. “Oh, you so perfect” (she was leaning towards him with parted lips), “so perfect and so peerless are created of every creature’s best.”(...)“That’s why I wanted to do something first. I mean, to show I was worthy of you. Not that I could ever really be that. But at any rate to show I wasn’t absolutely un-worthy. I wanted to do something.” (...) “I’ll do anything,” he went on, more and more incoherently. “Anything you tell me.(...) That’s what I feel. I mean I’d sweep the floor if you wanted.” Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Lenina Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: The TEMPEST - “But we’ve got vacuum cleaners here,” said Lenina in bewilderment. “It isn’t necessary.” - (...)“How much I love you, Lenina,” he brought out almost desperately. (...) But I hadn’t meant to say so,” cried the Savage, clasping his hands in a kind of agony. “Not until. Listen, Lenina; in Malpais people get married.” (...)“For always. They make a promise to live together for always.” Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: his traditions and poetry condiotined his beliefs, and even his experience in life made him associate sex with violence (his mom and Popé) andbut this has no meaning for her and them both cant understand each other. He sees Lenina as the girl in his poetry - “What a horrible idea!” Lenina was genuinely shocked. (...) -“It’s like that in Shakespeare too. ’If thou dost break her virgin knot before all sanctimonious ceremonies may with full and holy rite .”’ Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: the tempest - “For Ford’s sake, John, talk sense. I can’t understand a word you say. First it’s vacuum cleaners; then it’s knots. You’re driving me crazy.” (p.173-174). (44) Suddenly silent. Terror had made her forget the pain. Opening her eyes, she had seen his face-no, not his face, a ferocious stranger’s, pale, distorted, twitching with some insane, inexplicable fury. - “Whore!” he shouted “Whore! Impudent strumpet!”. The Savage pushed her away with such force that she staggered and fell. (...) , “get out of my sight or I’ll kill you.” (p.176-177) Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: She tries to kiss him and he hits her Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: she gets undressed and he sees as a SIN. she wants to end her passion with a sex relief, but she is not aware that her strong feeling could be love Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he beats her and she lock herself in the bathroom., showing his uncovered violent side. Just leaves when he receives the call about his mother (45) (...) the awful reality - but sublime, but significant, but desperately important precisely because of the imminence of that which made them so fearful. - “Don’t you know me, Linda?” He felt the faint answering pressure of her hand. The tears started into his eyes.(...) Anger suddenly boiled up in him. Balked for the second time, the passion of his grief had found another outlet, was transformed into a passion of agonized rage. “But I’m John!” he shouted. “I’m John!” And in his furious misery he actually caught her by the shoulder and shook her. (p.185). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he wants to get closer to her, get along with her, but she calls Popé and he gets angry because they are still apart by soma and this world. He wants to find a meaning in death, like in Shakeaspere, but she remains her well-condiotioned assumptions better than being his mother, because her last whisper is "everyone belongs..." hyppaedia teaching (46) “How many goodly creatures are there here!” The singing words mocked him derisively. “How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world...” (...) In his mind the singing words seemed to change their tone. They had mocked him through his misery and remorse, mocked him with how hideous a note of cynical derision! (...) the possibility of loveliness, the possibility of transforming even the nightmare into something fine and noble. “O brave new world!” It was a challenge, a command. (p.190). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: there were DELTA kids being death-condioned to accept death as something pleasant and useful, and they acted as everything was a party while John was crying her mother death. He shows his violent side again by almost hanging one of the kids = CONVENTIONAL DEATH X JOHN'S MEANINFUL MOMENT Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: It highlights the change in John's perception about the distopya. he realized he had to do something to release that people from slavery, as he saw it., so then they could be happy as in the world of his poetry.in which people can feel things. He quotes the poetry ironically to enphasize his disgust in this kind of inhuman processes - inhuman equality (47) - “Listen, I beg of you,” cried the Savage earnestly. “Lend me your ears .” (...)“Don’t take that horrible stuff. It’s poison,( …) Poison to soul as well as body.” Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: the working class was receiving their daily soma ration and he thought he would let people free by making them stop using soma - “Yes, but let me get on with my distribution, won’t you? There’s a good fellow.” With the cautious tenderness of one who strokes a notoriously vicious animal, he patted the Savage’s arm. “Just let me...” (...) - “Throw it all away, that horrible poison.” (p.191). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: It proves the state that whe words, literature, and intense emotions can cause social unrest (48) “But do you like being slaves?” (...) “Do you like being babies? Yes, babies. Mewling and puking,” (...) Grief and remorse, compassion and duty- all were forgotten now and, as it were, absorbed into an intense overpowering hatred of these less than human monsters. “Don’t you want to be free and men? Don’t you even understand what manhood and freedom are?” (...) “I’ll teach you; I’ll make you be free whether you want to or not.” (p.193). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: that life was not being truly a human for John Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: and then he throws the soma out through the window, because he does not understand why people dont realize his values. In this, John thinks he is doing something good, but actually, violence would never be the answer so taht we could compare him a villan (49) Hesitant on the fringes of the battle. “They’re done for,” said Bernard and, urged by a sudden impulse, ran forward to help them; then thought better of it and halted; then, ashamed, stepped forward again; then again thought better of it, and was standing in an agony of humiliated indecision - thinking that they might be killed if he didn’t help them, and that he might be killed if he did, when (Ford be praised!)(...) the police. Bernard dashed to meet them. He waved his arms; and it was action, he was doing something. He shouted several times, more and more loudly so as to give himself the illusion of helping. “Help!” (p.193). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he is hesitant to avoid being arrested and he shows himself a coward not to defend-help his friends (50) - “(...) Because it’s old; that’s the chief reason. We haven’t any use for old things here.” Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Them three are taken to the Controller's office, Mustapha Mond. John sees the books on the shelves and asks if they read Shakeaspeare. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: John and Mond talking and John sees Shakeaspeare book's on she shelf and asks him waht they are prohibid - “Even when they’re beautiful?” - “Particularly when they’re beautiful. Beauty’s attractive, and we don’t want people to be attracted by old things. We want them to like the new ones.” Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: consumerism - “But the new ones are so stupid and horrible. Those plays, where there’s nothing but helicopters flying about and you feel the people kissing.” He made a grimace. “Goats and monkeys!” Only in Othello’s word could he find an adequate vehicle for his contempt and hatred. (p.197-198). (51) “Because our world is not the same as Othello’s world. You can’t make flivvers without steel-and you can’t make tragedies without social instability. The world’s stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get. They’re well off; they’re safe; they’re never ill; they’re not afraid of death; they’re blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they’re plagued with no mothers or fathers; they’ve got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they’re so conditioned that they practically can’t help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there’s soma, which you go and chuck out of the window in the name of liberty, Mr. Savage. Liberty!” He laughed. (...) “But that’s the price we have to pay for stability. You’ve got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. We’ve sacrificed the high art. We have the feelies and the scent organ instead.” (p.198-199). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: now even Helmol. agrees that these things are meaninless, and he writes when there is nothing to write (52) - “The optimum population,” said Mustapha Mond, “is modelled on the iceberg - eight-ninths below the water line, one-ninth above.” - “And they’re happy below the water line?” - “Happier than above it. (...) - “In spite of that awful work?” - “Awful? They don’t find it so. On the contrary, they like it. It’s light, it’s childishly simple. No strain on the mind or the muscles. Seven and a half hours of mild, unexhausting labour, and then the soma ration and games and unrestricted copulation and the feelies. What more can they ask for? (p.200-201) Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: LOVE FOR SERVITUDE (53) (...) “that’s another item in the cost of stability. It isn’t only art that’s incompatible with happiness; it’s also science. Science is dangerous; we have to keep it most carefully chained and muzzled.” (...) “You’ve had no scientific training, so you can’t judge. I was a pretty good physicist in my time. Too good - good enough to realize that all our science is just a cookery book, with an orthodox theory of cooking that nobody’s allowed to question, and a list of recipes that mustn’t be added to except by special permission from the head cook. I’m the head cook now. (...). (p.203). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he controls science in order to control people and the stability (54) (...) “if he had the smallest sense, he’d understand that his punishment is really a reward. He’s being sent to an island. That’s to say, he’s being sent to a place where he’ll meet the most interesting set of men and women to be found anywhere in the world. All the people who, for one reason or another, have got too self-consciously individual to fit into community-life. All the people who aren’t satisfied with orthodoxy, who’ve got independent ideas of their own. (...) I chose this and let the science go.” (...) Happiness is a hard master - particularly other people’s happiness. A much harder master, if one isn’t conditioned to accept it unquestioningly, than truth.” (...)“Well, duty’s duty. One can’t consult one’s own preference. I’m interested in truth, I like science. But truth’s a menace, science is a public danger. (...) Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can’t. And, of course, whenever the masses seized political power, then it was happiness rather than truth and beauty that mattered. (...) after the Nine Years’ War, people were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. We’ve gone on controlling ever since. (p.204-205). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Bernard is told he is going to Iceland Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: the one's whose condition did not work properly and they got aware of their situation, a more humate world. Helmon. accepts his new life, far from the pressures of conformity Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: the importance of happiness at the cost of truth, freedom and beauty Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he shows his own anti-social tendencies, but as the only one who can break the law, he confessed had experimented forbidden scince, and then he accpeted the dystopian valeus in the name of other's happiness. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: the repressive control in the name of happiness(55) - “For the same reason as we don’t give them Othello: they’re old; they’re about God hundreds of years ago. Not about God now.” Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: The Blible Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he is against religion because of materialism, consumerism - “But God doesn’t change.” - “Men do, though.” (...) “...he manifests himself as an absence; as though he weren’t there at all.”(...) “...the fault of civilization. God isn’t compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make your choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness. That’s why I have to keep these books locked up in the safe. They’re smut. People would be shocked it .” (...) One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them. (p.208-211) Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: God is not compatible with civilization (56) - “If you allowed yourselves to think of God, you wouldn’t allow yourselves to be degraded by pleasant vices. You’d have a reason for bearing things patiently, for doing things with courage. I’ve seen it with the Indians.” - “l’m sure you have,” said Mustapha Mond. “But then we aren’t Indians. There isn’t any need for a civilized man to bear anything that’s seriously unpleasant. (...) It would upset the whole social order if men started doing things on their own.” (...) “chastity means passion, chastity means neurasthenia. And passion and neurasthenia mean instability. And instability means the end of civilization. You can’t have a lasting civilization without plenty of pleasant vices.” (...) there aren’t any wars nowadays. The greatest care is taken to prevent you from loving any one too much. There’s no such thing as a divided allegiance; you’re so conditioned that you can’t help doing what you ought to do. And what you ought to do is on the whole so pleasant, so many of the natural impulses are allowed free play, that there really aren’t any temptations to resist. And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there’s always soma to give you a holiday from the facts. (...) Christianity without tears - that’s what soma is.” (p.212-213). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Mond knows God and religions from the forbidden books he had read Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: there is no need to have a God if everybody is happy and have no disconfort Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: that the consolation for their life. HE beleives that human life requires suffering and danger and pain so that you achieve nobility and heroism, and that's what freeedom means (57) “But the tears are necessary. (...) “You got rid of them. Getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it. Whether ’tis better in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. But you don’t do either. Neither suffer nor oppose. You just abolish the slings and arrows. It’s too easy.” (p.214). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: John has lived religion is his life in the Reservation Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he is frustated with a society in which conditioning has abolished all the frustations. He believes in self-denial and suffering as a way to have a good life. (58) - “I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.” Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: this is a barrier for growtn and spiritualy, and he believes that this life of just pleasure is degrading. CONFORT is a sign of control and FREEDOM is a sign of suffering, diseases and misery. WHAT ARE THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM AND CONTROL? WHAT CONTROLS US? ARE WE AWARE OF IT? - “In fact,” said Mustapha Mond, “you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.” (p.215). (59) He pacified his conscience by promising himself a compensating harder self-discipline, purifications the more complete and thorough. (...) From time to time he stretched out his arms as though he were on the Cross, and held them thus through long minutes of an ache that gradually increased till it became a tremulous and excruciating agony; held them, in voluntary crucifixion, while he repeated, through clenched teeth (the sweat, meanwhile, pouring down his face), “Oh, forgive me! Oh, make me pure! Oh, help me to be good!” again and again, till he was on the point of fainting from the pain. (...) who was he to be pampered with the daily and hourly sight of loveliness? Who was he to be living in the visible presence of God? (p.218-219). Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: the beautiful sights were the embodiement of God and he did not deserve it Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he felt guilty for being happy, he was there to purify himself (60) Lenina. No, no, no, no! He sprang to his feet and, half naked as he was, ran out of the house. At the edge of the heath stood a clump of hoary juniper bushes. He flung himself against them, he embraced, not the smooth body of his desires, but an armful of green spikes. (...) Poor Linda whom he had sworn to remember. But it was still the presence of Lenina that haunted him. (p.225) Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he felt gulty for still remerber her and still relates sex with violence Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he turns all his dissilutions into a physical matter Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he felt guilty for her death so he kept imprisioned within himself, in his guilt Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he shows his religious feelings - self-destruction and rituals of purification by whipping - John's life is not influenced by Chrtianism by by the demons of his own gulit. If the dystopia is the horrifying version of a life with nothing but self-confort, John's lighthosue retreats as the same horrifying vision of life with nothing but self-induced pain. as differente as they are, BOTH WORLS ARE EMPTNESS AND PURPOSELESSNESS (117) In a few minutes there were dozens of them, standing in a wide circle round the lighthouse, staring, laughing, clicking their cameras, throwing (as to an ape) peanuts, packets of sex-hormone chewinggum, pan-glanduar petite beurres. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he was a circus attraction, or like an animal in the zoo where people stand watching, he is less than a human - “Go away!” he shouted. The ape had spoken; there was a burst of laughter and hand-clapping. “Good old Savage! Hurrah, hurrah!” And through the babel he heard cries of: “Whip, whip, the whip!” (...) Pain was a fascinating horror. (p.227-229) Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: he starts whipping her (61) Drawn by the fascination of the horror of pain and, from within, impelled by that habit of cooperation, that desire for unanimity and atonement, which their conditioning had so ineradicably implanted in them, they began to mime the frenzy of his gestures, striking at one another as the Savage struck at his own rebellious flesh, or at that plump incarnation of turpitude writhing in the heather at his feet.(...) Stupefied by soma, and exhausted by a long-drawn frenzy of sensuality, the Savage lay sleeping in the heather. (p.230) Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: the chaos ends up in a sexual orgy, like the orgy-porgy process Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: without noticing, John emerges into the BNW he ahd once tried to escape, yeling himself to the sexual desire he has so long fought against. The hope for a humate society is lost 4- Brave New World Revisited In 1958, Aldous Huxley published a collection of nonfictional essays on the same social, political, and economic themes he had explored earlier in his novel Brave New World. Part of Huxley's reason for "revisiting" the themes of the novel stems from his horrified recognition that the world he created in fiction was in fact becoming a reality. In the depths of the ColdWar (1947), a totalitarian world state — a Communist dictatorship, perhaps — seemed a distinct possibility. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: prophetic quality of his own future vision Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: choice between World Control and destruction, just as Ford says when talking about history is bunk!! In describing the modern, postwar world, Huxley acknowledges the prophetic power of George Orwell's 1984. In communist nations, leaders used to control individuals with punishment, and at times torture citizens into submission in Orwell's novel. But in the Soviet Union at least, the death of Stalin brought governments to attempt to control high-ranking individuals with rewards — just as in Brave New World. Meanwhile, the government continued to enforce conformity on the masses by fear of punishment. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: communism and totalitarismo are both different forms of opression Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: inescapable destiny The future will seem to look more like Brave New World than 1984. In the West, pleasure and distraction, used by those in power, control people's spending, political loyalties, and even their thoughts. Control through reward poses a greater threat to human freedom because, unlike punishment, it can be introduced unconsciously. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: brainwashing and alienation Huxley also points to the danger of overpopulation as the trigger for tyranny. The chaos caused by overpopulation may be demanding control through over organization. Instead of many little businesses producing necessities, an over-organized society allows big business to mass-produce anything and everything saleable, while controlling consumer spending through commercials and social pressure. In the 1950s, commercial jingles — "singing commercials" — seem to invade and take over the conscious mind and culture. And the use of subliminal persuasion, a method for introducing subconscious suggestions, had already caused a scandal in American movies. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: compared to the hypnopaedia process Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: unconscious power of the suggestions seems perfect for the cheery authoritarianism The literal consumption of soma-like drugs also captures Huxley's attention. By the 1950s, readily available tranquilizers adjusted people to a maladjusted culture, smoothing out any inconvenient instincts of resistance, just as a soma-holiday eliminated the recognition of unhappiness. In general, Huxley warns his readers that they may be accepting a world that they would reject, if only they were fully conscious of its nature. But, distracted by consumerism and pleasure, people seldom truly engage the reality they are living. Unconscious manipulation through language — propaganda — keeps individual minds open to any suggestions, even the most inhuman. Huxley cites, from recent history, Hitler's power of manipulation through language as a motivating to citizens to support his leadership.. Huxley's fictional Controllers of the World State follow the same pattern with the Solidarity Services, a ritual of programmed mass hysteria to produce social loyalty, just as the World Controllers of Brave New World want to maintain stability. Dictators like Hitler use propaganda to whip up support and to direct violence against anyone identified as the enemy. Comment by Beatriz Nogueira de Oliveira: Power Elite - C. Wright Mills' term for the government and business leaders controlling communication and the economy Through commercials, subliminal messages, and careful suppression of challenging truths, Huxley declares, propaganda is infiltrating the language of society. If the trend continues, Westerners may be in danger of becoming as unconsciously manipulated and enslaved as the citizens of the brave new world. Identifying the enemy of freedom as propaganda, education in the recognition and resistance of propaganda must be the responsibility of every individual, since government and other authorities may oppose the unmasking of anti-rational, manipulative language for their own reasons. Still, Huxley insists, the only hope lies in the active mind, able and willing to make its own judgments. Individual freedom, compassion, and intelligence an guide the fully conscious, fully human mind into a truly free, truly human future. 5- Brave New World Adaptations Brave New World is the twelfth studio album by the English heavy metal band Iron Maiden, released on May, 29th 2000. “‘Dying swans, twisted wings, beauty not needed here’, I don’t recall there being any dying swans in Brave New World, the book. But I wanted an image that represented the tragedy and sadness of what Brave New World had done. Dying swans, twisted wings, you know, the agony, the death. Brave New World doesn’t want to see that. In the book, if you want excitement, you go to the viddies; it’s Aldous premonition about virtual reality and I’m taking that and throwing it out there for discussion.”. - Bruce Dickinson. Iron Maiden Brave New World Dying swans twisted wings Beauty not needed here Lost my love, lost my life In this garden of fear I have seen many things In a lifetime alone Mother love is no more Bring this savage back home Wilderness house of pain Makes no sense of it all Close this mind dull this brain Messiah before his fall What you see is not real Those who know will not tell All is lost sold your souls To this brave new world A brave new world In a brave new world A brave new world In a brave new world (2x) Dragon kings dying queens Where is salvation now? Lost my life, lost my dreams Rip the bones from my flesh Silent screams laughing here Dying to tell you the truth You are planned and you are damned In this brave new world A brave new world In a brave new world A brave new world In a brave new world (3x) Admirável Chip Novo is the first albul of the brazilian rock singer, Pitty. released on May, 7th, 2003. Pitty is noted for her dark and complex songwriting. The opening track "Teto de Vidro" deals with the capitalistic society and the curiosity some have over other people's lives. "Admirável Chip Novo", "Máscara", "I Wanna Be", and "Só de Passagem" are about falsity and shallow behaviors. "O Lobo" throws back to Prehistory to criticize war and hatred among humankind. The other compositions deal with love, life, and ordinary actions and decisions. 6- References HUXLEY, ALDOUS, Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited; foreword by Christopher Hitchens. - 1st ed. - Published in 1932, by Harper & Brothers, Publishers. HUXLEY, ALDOUS, Admirável Mundo Novo/Aldous Huxley; tradução Lino Vallandro, Vidal Serrano. - 22ª ed. - São Paulo: Globo, 2014. 314p. CliffsNotes on Brave New World, by Charles and Regina Higgins, 2000. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, nEW yORK. CARTER, Ronald and McRAE, John, The Penguin Guide to Literature in English: Britain and Ireland - 2ª ed, 2001, 263p. (159-188 p.). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/bravenew/ https://www.britannica.com/topic/Brave-New-World#ref340103 https://www.letras.mus.br/iron-maiden/19295/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admir%C3%A1vel_Chip_Novo